Plastic Extrusion Design

Plastic profiles from Condale Plastics showcasing plastic extrusion design

Our knowledgeable and experienced technical sales team at our East Grinstead factory can offer you support and advice on your initial extrusion design or at any stage of your project. We can advise on the suitability of thermoplastic material and different colours and finishes to help customers optimise their designs and achieve cost savings.

10 extrusion design considerations

To help customers achieve good quality plastic profiles we advise them to consider the following 10 design points.

Condale Plastics' extrusion design icons 1. Regular wall thickness Always try to achieve an even wall thickness in your extrusion design. Variations in thickness can make the flow of plastic material through the tool difficult to regulate, causing cooling at different rates and distorting the finished profile. Irregular extrusion wall thicknesses can also lead to difficulties in manufacturing and increased production costs.
Condale Plastics' extrusion design icon 2. Limit detail in hollow profiles As thermoplastic extrusion is a continuous process, internal definition in hollow sections is difficult to achieve as there is no way of getting inside the hollow to hold detail in place during the calibration (forming) process. Complex detail can only be achieved by opening up the profile.
Condale Plastics' plastic extrusion design icon with red X 3. Avoid hollows in hollows A hollow within another hollow cannot be held in position so will inevitably force the intended extrusion design out of shape before the thermoplastic solidifies.
Extrusion design icon for Condale Plastics 4. Provide good access for internal detail If the extrusion design has an opening, legs, grooves, snap-in features and other details can be incorporated internally.
Condale Plastics' extrusion design icons 5. Length tolerances Where possible, design a little tolerance into your required extrusion length. Thermoplastics contract and expand with temperature and cutting plastic profiles to a very critical length may add unnecessarily to cost. Extrusions requiring very tight tolerances are generally cut out of line, incurring higher processing and handling costs.
Condale icons 6. Mating parts Custom plastic profiles often need to fit another component. Providing a sample of the mating part will facilitate the tool design stage and ensure an accurate fit when trialling the plastic profile.
Condale icons 7. Clear plastic profiles A clear finish can be achieved with several materials to varying degrees of clarity. Clear rigid PVC is generally the cheapest material, but will not produce a glass clear finish. To obtain optimum clarity, choose PETG or Polycarbonate, depending on your profile design criteria.
Condale icons 8. Flexible profile designs Generally the same rules apply as rigid plastic profile design except that the process of extruding flexible plastic profiles allows for variable wall thicknesses.
 plastic extrusion design icon for Condale Plastics 9. Dual density co-extrusion To achieve a dual hardness co-extrusion with both rigid and flexible properties, two machines are used to feed the separate materials through the same die. Co-extrusion allows for rigid profiles to have flexible lips or flaps or for two rigid profiles to be joined by a flexible hinge.
 plastic extrusion design icon 10. Two colour co-extrusion It is possible to combine two different colours in the same extrusion, or produce a two colour extrusion with a dominant colour and a stripe in a second colour.

Contact us today to discuss your plastic extrusion requirements

Contact us today